Kate Andrews

Chapter 4

“Wait. You have humans on your planet?”

“X-humans,” Binstrome corrected, “Might I add that it was quite rude of your people to steal that name and make it X-Men. Anyway, as I was saying, they were doing experiments to replicate themselves and their lifestyle. Your planet was the result."

"After accidentally creating bacteria, a bunch of other planets and all sorts of animals, they managed to make the human race. We decided not to destroy you. Instead, we gave you the gift of farming and fire. Humans have greatly advanced since then, but less than expected. The invention of technology was your greatest break-through, but then humans went too far. You started creating all sorts of machines to make your life easier, up till the point where they were half-living it for you. Never mind that now. Moving on, the X-humans were kind of like the employees.”

My head was spinning with everything that Binstrome had said, but I sat silently.

“Something just occurred to me,” Kevin piped, “Don’t you guys have time machines?”

“Of course we do! But we had to learn the hard way that time is a delicate and fragile matter best left alone. If we affect time, we affect incidents too. From any point in time, there are about a hundred things that can happen, depending on hundreds of choices. When you choose one, you eliminate all others. Going back or forward in time, makes us go down very different roads. Changing one thing at any point, will affect everything else. If you affect one incident in time, all others will indirectly be affected, and can change everything. Yes, it is better to let things play out,” he said.

“Everything that happens, happens for the best, or so I’ve been told,” he ended in a bitter tone.

“I’ll accept that. What about those other two siblings you told us about?” Aaron questioned.

“You’ll meet them soon enough. They are already on G’ Zox. It took much longer to get them there. I almost had to sedate them! The 5 of you will be briefed together on the exact details of your job. Is that all or do you have more questions?”

I realized how he was being much politer now, but I had no idea why.

“Last one. You still haven’t told us why you need us ‘lesser beings’ to capture Zephigon,” Aaron inquired.

Binstrome’s expression hardened, “You don’t know what Zephigon can do. Our best agents have been compromised in attempts to capture him. Perhaps you will be able to convince him that we are weak and he’ll get over-confident.”

It sounded like Binstrome knew first-hand about what Zephigon could do.

“Sorry-,” I started apologetically, “but, I have one more question.”

“Ask.”

It felt wrong asking the question that I was about to, but it had been preying on me and I wanted a satisfactory answer. “Why should we help save your planet?”

“So, Katelyn Allison Andrews, you’re telling me that you’d just stand by and watch the home of billions of people get destroyed and still go on living your life happily with the knowledge that you could have save them?” he asked coldly.

I felt blood rise to my face as I shook my head emphatically, embarrassed. Of course not. I had just asked that question because I felt that Binstrome was hiding something.

“But, since you asked,” He continued,” As I’ve said before, the Earth was created by the X-humans. Your planet is directly linked to ours. If we die, so does the Earth and all of its inhabitants.”

We sat in silence as that horrible fact sunk in. Now the lives of 7 billion people, along with the ones of those on G’ Zox were in our rather incapable hands. And it was, directly or indirectly, my fault. Yippee.

The three of us sat glumly while Binstrome went back to driving/flying the bus. Judging by the view outside, we were already in space. I could see Venus and Mercury as we zipped by. Under different circumstances, I would’ve been overjoyed to see this sight; one I had never even dreamed of. But with the threat of the destruction of 2 planets looming over our heads, it was kind of hard to take pleasure in anything. Scratch that. Binstrome informed us that if the Earth blew up, the other planets in our Solar System, including Pluto, would be saying ‘buh-bye’ to existence too. Great. Just perfect.

Binstrome drew thick curtains across the windows as we neared the Sun. The bus’s exterior was made up of some metal that would prevent our incineration, but if we saw the Sun, we’d still go blind.

Sitting and thinking didn’t help calm me down, so I started pacing the bus. That just made it worse. So, I went into the dressing room and changed into a more comfortable outfit- skinny jeans and a blue baggy top. I pulled my long wavy black hair back into a ponytail and checked my reflection in the mirror. As my fringe came in front of my eyes, I wondered for the hundredth time why I had let my mom talk me into getting it. My chocolate brown eyes with their long and thick lashes stared back at me. I had a slim, athletic, 5’5” figure, a rounded, small nose, high cheekbones, and a pink, full, albeit small-ish mouth and slightly tanned skin. This is how my English teacher described me, word for word, when teaching character descriptions. I used to be really fat and chubby when I was around 12, but a bit of basketball had changed that. People tell me that I look like my mom, who is actually really beautiful, so I take it as a compliment.

Aaron had brown hair, like me, but Kevin had sandy hair. Anyone who saw us could tell we were related. That was not necessarily a good thing.

Kevin was 5’2"  Aaron was a little more than 6 feet. Kevin had hazel eyes, but Aaron had amber ones. My brothers were good-looking, I guess, but don’t dare tell anyone I said that.

Usually, I get terrible motion-sickness whenever I travel, but in bus like this, it's really easy to distract yourself. Kevin was playing a video game on the flat screen and Aaron was practicing some tennis shots. With everything that was going on, I had to find some sanity. There was the swimming pool, hot tub and a basketball court and also a bunch of laptops and TVs. I did the obvious thing. I brought out my journal, that I had snatched from Kevin and started writing.

If you think this is any good, please vote! And stay tuned for the next chapter- new characters coming in! By the way, I have nothing against the X-Men. In fact, I love the movies.